>I'm behind in my postings so I'll leave the analysis for others. I love this line, though -- A consultant with a leading IT services firm I recently spoke with likened Microsoft's .NET vision to "a spell-checker for rent over the Internet for Word."

I don't get it. Is that supposed to be outragous or something? Its a little simplified, and its not really Microsoft's "vision" (anyone who has been paying attention realizes that the PC isn't all that common in Microsoft's plans for .NET) but that definitely is one use of a Web Service.

Especially if I get into the situation where I needed to temporariliy use a German dictionary in my spell check, or maybe a dictionary that included big words not commonly found outside of Botany.

But in any case, the whole article is questoinable. He's not informed, in the slightest.